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BLL ED Seek elated tne ia SS OS EES SE ES DOMES PITOT HA ASS es ee tt tra al ot TSS a ETE art wand RS rapes Saisie preter { dinner given by Miss Alice Barrows in 1933 of giving voice to “subversive” senti- ments. ‘BR. WILLIAM -A. WIRT, former su- perintendent of schools at Gary, Ind., now deceased, who accused “a group” at the duzatlonalist in the De- pariment of the Inierjor, ‘who’ entertained - “the group” accused by Dr. Wirt Wirt, wrote a book whose philosophy of “planned economy” meant overthrow of the American Government. date for Vice-President and former Secre- HENRY A. WALLACE, New Deal eandi- tary of Agriculture, who, according to Dr. | Walllace’s Writings | What D Called Subversive By -KENT- ‘nd women sat down to dinner educationalist in tho Interior ginia, near Washington, on the At that time, Henry wes “just a Cabinet office pened to be some of the Walla as a possible Vice-President wise be eliminated. ¢ Much of what was said at that! dinner might have been lost in the limbo of forgotten words had not! one of the guests later written! tions of the con- versations, and later, under oath before a Congre-stonal investiga- tion committee, sworr. to the truth of what he wrote. who did the writing line of sueeession should the President die, HUNTEK More than seven years have rolled away since seven men| at the home of Alice Barrows,| Department, in suburban Vir- night of Friday, Sept. 1, 1933, A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, Certainly no one, unless it bap: ce inner circle, thought of him of the United States, first in resien or other- was Dr. William A. Wirt, tormer| superintendent of Public Schools, at Gary, Indiana — a Ilberal in| matters of education — who died March 11, 1938, nearly four years| after his sworn testimony had been made a public record by the Congressional committee hearings. Today, on the eve of what many} regard as the most important] ational election in the history of the United States, that dinner, and what was said there, bounce, back to furnish deep food for thought for an electorate heading ta the polls on Nov. 5. In addition to Dr, Wirt, those who attended that dinner—ac- cording to his sworn testimony— were: Alice Barrows, the hostess: Robert Bruere, then chalrman of the Textile Code Authority: David Cushman Coyle, the: member of the Technical Review] Board of the Public Works Admia-| istration; Lawrence Todd, representative LAWRENCE TODD (standi quizzed by Rep. Harold the Daily Worke Wirt's charges, Met at the ng), representative of Tass Agency (official news agency for Soviet Russia), being ugin regarding a copy of ungtessional probe of Dr. a(which lasted several hours. On April 10, 1934, an Investigating Committee of the House of Represcntatives held sessions in Washington to hear Dr. Wiliam A, Wirt, Gary, Ind., educator, explain the text of a mincographed statement ho had previously sent toa number *f_ American’ business leaders and which James tana, Jr, had put into the testimony of another Congres- sional Committee some weeks previous. Wirt read into the record portions of that statement, and swore the material in tt first came to his attention at a dinner tu Virginia, on Friday, Sept. 1, 1933. The statement covercd a definite plan which Wirt said was concocted by men and twonen INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT to radically change our Govern- ment, Salient points of Wirt's statement, as he. read it under oath, are given below: “I was told that they’—(the sponsors of The Plan)— “believed by thwarting our then evident recovery ‘hey would be able to prolong the country's destitution unti: they had demonstrated to the American people that the Government must operate industry and commerce. . “T was told that of course commercial banks could not make long term loans and that they wonld be able to destroy by propaganda the other institutions that had been making sen Methane eer nme of Tass Agency (official news and, Dr. Wirt, bress agency for Soviet Russia}; Hildegarde Kneeland, then trom| the Home Economies Department lof the Department of Agriculture: Mary Taylor, economist in thel AAA division of the Department| jot Agriculture. The dinner, according to Wirt, had gone into general discussion| In substance, he charged, the women from the Department of Agricul- ture and Todd, from the Soviet| Russia news agency, spoke of “their group.” : Specificatly, he charged, Miss} Kneeland referred to Dr, Rexford| Tugwell and Secretary Wallace as! the leaders of thought for thelr] atoup, Specifically, he named: Yodd, Miss Kneeland and Miss Taylor as individually making the statement of (he President being in the “middie of a swift stream.” and ceing “only the Kerensky of uils Revolution.” Specifically. tooks writer, by Tugwell Waltace as carrying the philosophy ict a government overthrow and catablishment of “planned econ- jumy” along radical lines. : Wirt's charres were first in- etuded in mimcographed form inf which Usey were sent to James Rand; to General Robert E. Wood, ot Chicago; te former Governor Somes P. Goodrich, of Indian and others—a list of perhaps one] it bundred tn all. Including many, veading newspapers. Rand, in turn, with Wirt's per-/ mission. had included portions of the Wirt statement in Rand's testi-iie nrony before ihe Interstate and Poreign Commerce Cotmmittee of| the House on March 23 1934. It 3 the Rand testimony which led} yw House resulution 317. creating the investigating comnii:tee before which Wirt xppeared. + Records of the Investigating [Committee hearings shew that Dr. Wirt had a stormy hearing. In the first place Former Senator James A Reed. of Mi-sourl, his counsel. was péimitted to sit at the heating “only as a ‘riend” of Wirt was not permit~ ted, under a committee vote put by Chairman Alfred L. Buiwinkle. of North Carolina—one of the New| Deal Congressmen of 1934—from making a preliminary statement to the Committee to exptain his post- Uon. He was held to a strict an- swering of Committee questions. He was permitted to read sec- Uons from the statement he bad sent to Mr. Rand, which appear in another column of this newspazer. And, subsequent to that reading. he was questioned, at some con- siderable detail, by members of the Committee. One of his answers a3 to who had named Tugwell and Secretary Wallace bro'ht this answe: . ° Vader-Secretary of Agvieult Dr, Wirt, also wrote subversi ss aeeneineceeeaameineaaememeneaniem ene ae ee are in the Depariment of Agricul-| ing of unholy hands on many al of Dr. Tugwell thls so-cilled SECRETARY WALLACE con, Tugwell (right) at the lime the latter: was appointed our capital loans, Then we can push Uncle Sam into the posi- tion where be most make these capital loans. And, of course, when Uncle Sam becomes our financier, he must also follow his money with contrul and management”... “The most surpr sing statement made to me was the fol- Sowing: : ~ WE Gellert thut ‘we hace Mr. Roosevelt in the mid- dle of a swift streans and the current is s0 strong that he cannot turn back o1 escape from it. We believe we can keep Mr. Rooseveit there until we are ready to supplant hint with @ Stalin, We all think Mr. Roosevelt is onty the Kerensky of thir revolution? “When L asked why the President would not see through this scheme they repli:d: “‘We are on the inside. We control the avenues of influence. We can inake the President believe that he is making decisions fo. himself? . “They said: ‘A leader must appear io be a strong man of action. He .nust make decisions many times and make them quickly, whether good or bad. Soon he wilt begin to feel a superhuman flow of power from the flow of decisions themselves—good or bad. Eventually he can easily displaced becuuse of his bad decisions. With Ar. Roosevelt's backgroi nd we do not expect him lo see this revolution through.” “They said that (portion of ms. deleted): ‘Such indi- viduals can be induced to kindle the fires of revolution. At another point, Dr, Wirt uoted Miss Kneeland as saying ugweil had said: “Our plan will require the lay- “Miss Kneeland. The answer| waa that our group tikes the leadership and recognzes the, leadership of Dr, Tugwell Wwe ture and Henry A. Wa lace ex-| sacred precedent and doubtless it! pressed the viewpoint we belleved, wil: call for a greatly enlarged in the opinion, police enforcement department of! the Federal Government." ‘Wirt faced the committee for two days. The others named as and tkat if he had the vower bej|having attended the dinner were would have closed the commodity/tater called and denied the spe- and stock exchanges.” cifle charges made by Wirt. April Asked if Miss Kneeli.nd hadj|26, 1934, saw the charges officially identified any one else in the dropped, but with a minority re- group, Wirt said: {port submitted by Congressmen “No one other than Henry A.|Leblbach, of New Jersey, and Me- Wallace, Secretary of Ag-icullurg.!Gugin, af Kansas, both’ Ri ‘and his assistant, Dr, Turwell“? cans. ! * Congressman John J. O'Connor. i{ New York Democrat, voted to drop the charges at that tlme, but in 1939, in his book “Confession. Is Good for the Soul." O'Connor wrote that he had made a mis- sake in casting the vote which pre- yy vented further airing of Wirt's “|[ Paanaes. |_Wlrt’s general charges—remem- ‘ering that they were made in 334—seem to have been prophetic: an uncanny degree in some of hetr counts. Certainly news- “apert and magazines have been weekled and subjected to attacks Qn the truth of advertising which Congressman Bruce Barton has frequently referred to as “of an organted nature. and from Com- munistic sources.” Recurrent New Deal attacks on business, drives on “trusts” ard, the pillorying of business leaders: before governmental bureaus and committees bear out part of bis rredictions. Wirt's version that “the group’ ilanned to use the “psychology of, he empty stomach.” fits in with’ he Wallace economy of slaugh- tertog little pigs, plowing under cotton and restricting goin and Produce yields. at the very time eovery”—(in and feteployment for the other might r. Wirt Said After That Dinner in 1934 But strong men must take their places when once the country is engulfed in Hames. “Thus they, the Brain Trusiers, would soon be able to use the police power of the Government and ‘crack doin’ on the opposition with a big stick. In the meantime they would ex- tead the gloved hand and keep the big stick in tho background. “They were sure their propaganda could influence the masses against the old social order and the honest men as well as the crooks that represent that order. “T asked them what they would do when the Govern. ment could no longer dole out relief in the grand manner. By that time, it was answered, the oft repeated exhortation to in- dustry and commerce to make jobs out of confidence, to pro- duce goods and pay wages out of psychology, together with their other propaganda, would bave won the people to the idea that the only way out was for Government itself to oper- ate industry and commerce. “They Were certain they did not want to support agri- culture for a long time. They were certain the farmers could be won by doles to support the government operation of in. dustry and commerce. Farmers would be delighted to get their hands for once in ths history of the country in the public trough. The farmers would be ons with the masses—united for redistribution of the wealth of the other fellow. All they would need to de with the opposition would be to ask— ‘Well, what is your plan?” flooding the malls trom Govern- ment agencies, not the least prolific of which is Secretary WallSce's own Department ct Agriculture. The Wirt charge of the “group's” belief that “propaganda would inflame the masses against the social order”’ might explain mass picketing, sit-down strikes, anti-Government “demonstra- tions." including attacks on police and open riots, which reached an jall-time high in this country be- tween the date of that dinner in 1934 and the present day. purely coincidental that food dis- tribution to the unemployed steps up noticeably Just before this cur- rent trip of the voters to the polls. ‘The charge that leaders of in- dustry and labor would be kept quiet by “doies" in the form of foans and contracts for one and account for charges of tremendous WPA inereases prior to the 1936 election—and for many contracts| under the New Deal's unprecedent- ed spending programs. The Wirt charges that the group” hoped to maintain con-' trol of the schools and colleges juntl] the “New Dealers in the That mand eu pee took Lite over.” might expialn the growth ln the schools, from 1934 on, of the, American Student Union, the Karl] Marx Forum groups and simular organizations, the setup of ‘academic freedem” enthusiasts among organizations of teachers, it might explain the prevalence of the Rugg text-books In many. schools and the student and faculty drives against ROTC units and other wholly American groups; among the students. . The Wirt charge as to the “group's” belief in propaganda. Might account for the unprecc- dented amount of pamphlets, leaflets, and other material now + MISS HILDEGARDE KNEELAND, member of the Home Economics Dept. of the Agriculture Dept. in 1933, accused by Dr. Wirt of saying at the Barrows dinner that when the radicals were ¢ipitaliz- ing the slogan, “Starvatio: in the midst of plenty.” It is, of course, gratulating Dr. Rexford “Roosevelt was only ihe Kercnsty of this revolution,” that is, against the prosent torr» uf the U, S. Governments ure. Tugw ve articles, M, accordi 1g to PICTORIAL REVIEW—Nov. 3, 19:10